Burmese Children's Favorite Stories: Fables, Myths and Fairy Tales

(Hardback)

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Age range 6 to 9

Switch up your bedtime reading with these charming stories from Myanmar!

This beautifully illustrated children's book presents a collection of cherished fables, myths, legends, and fairy tales from Myanmar. The stories have been passed down through generations and were told to author Pascal Khoo Thwe by his grandmother. The eight charming tales in the book feature handsome princes, squabbling siblings, greedy crocodiles, and evil ogres and are all set against a backdrop of traditional Burmese village life. The stories deal with universal values that parents everywhere want their children to learn, such as good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, pride vs. humility, and wisdom vs. foolishness.

The eight delightful stories include:

• The Seven Sisters Seven beautiful sisters are forced to transform into peacocks to escape the evil kimhaka ogre.
• Let Her Take the Shadow A greedy market trader learns a lesson when she tries to charge a poor man for enjoying the smell of her delicious fried fish.
• The Squirrels and the Bees When the bees build their hive on the branch of the tree that is the squirrels' home, the squirrels are angry and scared. However, in the end, both the squirrels and the bees learn to live in harmony.
• And many more!

Enhanced by charming illustrations from Maeve Bates, this collection provides children with insights into the culture, values, and lifestyle of the Burmese people. Perfect for bedtime reading, the stories are sure to be enjoyed by children and parents alike.

Reviews

"[A] writer of uncommon elegance and sensitivity."-- New York Times Book Review

Author Bio

Pascal Khoo Thwe won international acclaim in 2002 with the publication of his memoir From the Land of Green Ghosts, for which he won the Kiriyama Prize. This memoir describes his remarkable odyssey from the Kayan Padaung tribe and a land torn by civil war to Cambridge University. He resides in Norway.

Maeve Bates is a self-taught illustrator. She lived in Myanmar for two years, where she worked with a social enterprise organization to paint a wall mural as part of a project to preserve heritage architecture. She is now a primary school teacher living in Dublin, Ireland, where she teaches Burmese and Irish folk stories to her class of ten-year-olds.